Art and theater reviews covering Seattle to Olympia, Washington, with other art, literature and personal commentary.
If you want to ask a question about any of the shows reviewed here please email the producing venue (theater or gallery) or email me at alec@alecclayton.com. If you post questions in the comment section the answer might get lost.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Note: This review was written for the Weekly Volcano but there was a schedule mixup -- my fault -- and they were not able to publish it. Instead, watch for my writeup on Art House Designs next week in the Volcano.

Images in art of
crows and ravens are ubiquitous and often dramaticwe if not downright
frightening. Myth and legend hold it that they are prescient, and they are
known to be highly intelligent birds — revered as tricksters by some Native
tribes.

Childhood’s End Gallery’s exhibition Crows
& Ravens features interpretations of the clever tricksters by a dozen
area artists, most of whom are well known and are regularly shown at Childhood’s End. On the
upside, these are all accomplished artists. On the downside, too many of the
works look too much alike, and taken as a whole the show becomes rather trite.

Please excuse me
if I call them all crow paintings. Having said that, here are a few words about
some of the good stuff.

"Visitation" pastel by Judith Smith

raku pot by Dave and Boni Deal.

Tom Anderson’s
“Eight Points of View,” mixed media on board depicting one majestic bird in
flight surrounded by seven much smaller birds, is bright and exciting with intense
yellow and black-and-white contrasts, with energetic lines set off against
large black masses and — the little touch that sets it above the commonplace —
cast shadows in the sky as if the birds are cut-out figures set in from the
surface. Anderson is mostly known as a painter of abstract forms. His crow
paintings have the same kind of texture and structure his abstracts are known
for.

Christopher
Mathie is also known as an abstract painter but also often ventures into
seascapes and animal paintings, and like Anderson, his paintings of
recognizable subjects include all the same heavy impasto and energetic slashing
of paint on canvas as his abstracts. In this show he has one large painting, "Hero &
Trickster," and two smaller ones that look like they should
be sold as a set and displayed together. "Hero & Trickster" pictures two birds perched on a limb with a turbulent sky
in the background. The colors and the stormy look remind me of both J.M.W.
Turner and Joan Mitchell.

One
of the nicest pieces in the show is a raku pot by Dave and Boni Deal. It is a large, almost perfectly round pot with a
picture of a crow on the surface. It has monumental presence and would actually
be better if the images of the crow had been left off.

Judith Smith is
known for her crow paintings, prints and pastels. There are at least seven of
her pictures in this show. A large pastel on canvas called “Visitation”
dominates the entrance to the gallery. It pictures three birds in flight,
possibly fighting, over an abstract background that looks like a scene of war
with fiery orange fading to brown and black and sharp orange outlines on one of
the birds while the other two have see-through bodies drawn with white lines. The
rich variety of lines and shapes and colors and the interaction of imagery and
background make this an exciting painting.

The one piece in
the show that is quite different from all the rest is Sara Gettys’ carved
sintra, a type of etching, titled “Before the Storm.” This is an iconic image
in black and white with bold lines and stark contrasts and an eye that
hypnotically stares at the viewer.

Other artists
included in this show are Kristen Etmund, Doyle Fanning, Jonathan Happ, Beki
Killorin, Chris Maynard and Graham Schodda.

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Here it comes again: Scrooge, Tiny Tim and the Christmas ghosts, as Tacoma Arts Live presents two performances of a new stage adaptation of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol on December 21, 2019 at 3:00 and 7:30 p.m. at Tacoma’s historic Pantages Theater.

This brand new, original production of A Christmas Carol is adapted, directed, and performed by award-winning theater veteran Scott H. Severance who is accredited with a long list of productions throughout his 40 year career, including Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and a role in the 2005 20th Century Fox film Fever Pitch.

Severance wrote the adaptation, directs the show and stars as the miserly Scrooge in this annual production, now in its 6th year. "Our goal is always to tell this classic well-known story in a way that audiences have never seen before,” Severance says. “Ours is a traditional version to be sure, but it may be funnier, scarier, and more spiritual than folks would commonly expect. Lots of music, puppetry, and fully realized emotional arcs throughout. Scrooge is not the villian, he is, in fact, the hero."

Tickets for A Christmas Carol are $19, $40, $55, 69 and are on sale now. To purchase advance tickets, call Tacoma Arts Live Box Office at 253.591.5894, toll-free at 1.800.291.7593, visit in person at 901 Broadway in Tacoma’s Theater District, or online at TacomaArtsLive.org.

Friday, December 13, 2019

There is much debate as to where “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
ranks among Shakespearean comedies, among the funniest or near the bottom (pun
intended), but there is little doubt that it is the most popular and most often
performed. And it’s easy to see why. It is among the frothiest of romantic
comedies, and few can resist the magic that takes place in the enchanted woods.
In other words, it is a most delicious guilty pleasure.

Changing Scene Theatre Northwest is now performing “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Dukesbay Theater in Tacoma, directed by the
company’s founder, Pavlina Morris, who is also responsible for the outstanding
lighting, costuming and set design, and who appears on stage as Petra Quince,
the director of a ridiculous play within a play.

The plot summary provided in the program is as succinct and
clear as any I’ve seen, and since Shakespeare’s plots are often convoluted, it
might serve patrons well to read it before the play begins.

Typical of Shakespearean plays, the plot is complicated by a
large cast of characters, many of whom appear in various guises. Theseus (Nick
Fitzgerald), the Duke of Athens, is preparing to marry Hippolyta, Queen of the
Amazons (Marsha Walner, who doubles as Titania, queen of the fairies). Hermia
(Cori Deverse) arrives with her two young suitors, Demetrius (Ton Williams) and
Lysandra (Emily Saletan). Hermia is in love with Lysandra and does not want to
wed her father’s choice, Demetrius. But she’s been warned that if she refuses
to marry Demetrius she can be put to death or sent to a nunnery for life.

Further complicating the plot and turning it into a farce are
(a) the makeshift theater troupe featuring a highly comical Bottom (Laurice
Roberts) and (b) a group of mischievousfairies led by Oberon (Fitzgerald) and his henchman, Puck (Jill
Heinecke), who cast spells on the Athenians making Lysandra fall in love with
Helena, turning Bottom’s head into the head of a jackass, and making Titania fall
in love with Bottom (jackass head and all).

In the play-within-a play, Francis Flute (Mason Quinn) is
forced to play a woman’s part. Further gender bending is provided by Morris’s
casting women, as Lysandra, Puck and Bottom.

Roberts is hilariously perky and energetic as Bottom. Among
the funniest moments in the play are the scene in which Quince is casting the
play and Bottom insists on playing every part; and when Bottom dies – usually a
delightful bit of over acting but in this case made comical by a hyperbolic
prop, which can’t be explained without spoiling a great moment.

Saletan is highly expressive as Lysandra. The scenes between
her and Hermia are very sensual and includes an uproarious bit of grabby hands.

Heinecke’s Puck moves with the grace of an accomplished
dancer. Williams is fierce and funny as Demetrius. Fitzgerald as Theseus and Oberon
and Quinn as Flute could put a bit more oomph into their acting.

Morris’s set and lighting are gorgeous, especially the large
flowers and hanging drapery on the backdrop and the glow-in-the-dark paint on
costumes, sets and masks.

For holiday fare worth the price of admission, “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream” might be just the ticket. Advance tickets are recommended
because seating is limited.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Liminal at 950 Gallery is a fully immersive art installation by
Tyler Budge, who

teaches sculpture at University of Washington
Tacoma. The term “liminal” is defined as the space between what is and what’s
yet to come. Budge’s installation explores these spaces both literally
(physically) and metaphorically.

“Our paths are filled with liminal moments — doorways/thresholds
that transport us from a structured understanding of where and who we are to an
undefined space,” Budge writes.

This multi-media installation explores these
transient moments. The gallery is a house under construction with two-by-four
studs for walls and openings for windows and doors. Open windows — both within
the construction and the actual windows of the gallery — invite visitors to
look out, in or through. Visually, it is abstract art, like a three-dimensional
Mondrian painting. Metaphorically, it represents the uncomfortableness of not
knowing exactly where you are or which way to go. There are tiny red-orange
windsocks everywhere being blown in one direction or another by fans controlled
my motion sensors. Standing in the interior space looking at the windsocks, I
was reminded of the line from Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “It don’t
take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

There are many birds: porcelain birds perched
on shelves, a video of birds on a wire, delicate line drawings of birds in
complementary colors drawn directly on the wall. Some of the studs are both
geometric and organic, straight along one edge and curving sensuously on the
opposite edge, and many of the stud edges are lined with simulated moss.

There is a very large moose head mounted on one
wall with its shadow painted in a beautiful cobalt blue — the same blue
repeated across the gallery where flocks of birds perch on shelves. And
finally, mounted to a window are 27 photographs of houses with attached
windsocks.

“The space is found under construction, divided
into smaller rooms by classic wood house framing construction. One is
confronted with familiar structures, while maneuvering thru framed doorways and
glancing thru framed windows,” Bulge writes. “Expectations are curbed by
contradiction — the outside is structured, predetermined, confined and orderly,
but the interiors are vast, open vistas — serene yet placeless. The interior
spaces speak of possibility yet provide no destination… One is left
directionless.”

Visitors to the gallery are invited to feel the
unsettling lack of direction, and perhaps relate it to the hubbub of modern
life and their own place in it.

Friday, December 6, 2019

“layers of paint hide and
synchronize in an agglomeration of evocative landscape / mind-scape /
dreamscape that welcomes the observer to reference their own imagination. i see
many things framed in the details and overall image, what do you see?” Thus,
China Star describes her paintings (all in lower-case).

A large selection of her
densely packed and colorful paintings graces the walls of Batdorf & Bronson
Coffeehouse. By the time you read this, the show will be gone, but most if not
all will be shown at All Sorts Gallery this weekend and next weekend. I visited
the show at Batdorf in order to preview the show at All Sorts, and I’m glad I
did. I plan on going to the reception at All Sorts on the 8th
because I want to see these paintings again, and because I want to hear China’s
talk.

I See the Music Seeping Out, painting by Chin Star

Star’s paintings are
eye-popping, decorative abstract paintings filled with stripes and dots and
splatters and puddles of black, white, orange, yellow and green paint in black
and white frames upon which she has painted dots and dashes to match the
patches of color on the canvas. In some of the paintings, parts of the
paintings overlap onto the frames.

One of her larger
paintings is an abstract painting titled “I See the Synapses Taking Form.” It
brings to mind street celebrations such as Mardi Gras or Macy’s Thanksgiving
parade, with floats and balloons and celebrating crowds. The colors are
slightly more muted in this one than some of the others. There are floating
ghost-like images with bold zebra stripes and yellow and green blobs that crawl
out onto the frame. Another of her paintings has long, lacy skeins of paint such
as in a Jackson Pollock painting and large lozenge-shaped white balloons with
black stripes and more black stripes on the white frame.

Much of the paint,
primarily acrylic, looks like enamel that has been poured and allowed to
puddle. Contrasting with this, there are areas where the paint is thin and
transparent and soaked into the canvas.

There is so much going on
in her paintings that they would seem chaotic but for the definite patterns and
groupings of forms and colors that keep it all unified.

Star says, “my technique
is the process of mark making, pouring, brushing, scraping, repetition, trance,
releasing a desire towards the referential, allowing things to happen in a
collaboration with the unknown to manifest the purest abstraction of form . .
.”

She was born in Los
Angeles and now makes Olympia her home. Her visual art, animation,
word-smithing and musical performances have been exhibited in 25 cities
nationally and internationally, and her work has been added to public and
private collections.

The Wind in the
Willows at Olympia Family Theater offers a respite
from the usual spate of Christmas stories this time of year. It is a delightful
romp in the woods and trip down a river by a loveable group of anthropomorphized animals who demonstrate the
power and beauty of friendship. “At its heart,
it’s a story about community and the connections we make with each other, which
is pretty Christmassy,” said director and playwright Andrew Gordon, as quoted
in The Olympian by Molly Gilmore. Gordon adapted the musical from the 1908
children’s novel by Kenneth Grahame and co-wrote the lyrics with Bruce Whitney
and Daven Tillinghast.

Set in
pastoral woods in England at the turn of the 20th century, The
Wind in the Willows is the tale of Toad (Jordan Richards), who is fun
loving and adventurous, and something of a klutz who constantly gets in trouble
and must be helped out by his friends — even to the extent of helping him
escape from jail by dressing him up as a washer woman who doesn’t know how to
wash clothes in a tub; doesn’t even know it requires water. The scene in which
Toad attempts to prove to the barge woman (Reva Rice, who also plays Chief
Weasel and Pilot) is uproarious. And this is but one of many Vaudeville-style
skits Richards pulls off enthusiastically.

None of the
actors use animal masks. Rather, they wear delightful period clothing by
costumer Mishka Navarre from a time when automobiles were a rarity and driven
only by the wealthy and adventurous, and they act more like humans than
animals. Toad is almost fatally attracted to motor cars, to the point of
stealing one, wrecking it and getting tossed in jail.

This is the
second time OFT has produced Wind in the Willows. The 2012 production
featured Jason Haws, Kate Arvin and Ryan Holmberg, and was directed by Jenny
Greenlee. This new version is directed by Gordon and stars, in addition to
Richards as Toad, Hannah Eklund as Mole, Mandy Ryle as Rat and John Serembe as
Badger. This new version has been updated with an added a Christmas Carol and
three other new songs — nice additions to their earlier hit.

Richards is
terrific. His wild expressions and physical humor crack up the audiences.
Eklund plays Mole as a shy and loveable character audiences can easily relate
to. Ryle is a likeable Rat, and she sings beautifully. And Serembe is crusty
and funny. His immense stage presence undeniable. Every time he stepped on
stage opening night the audience broke into laughter.

The large
supporting cast is also noticeably good. Their fluid handling of many roles and
their easy movements into an out of an often-crowded set is flawless, thanks to
Gordon’s direction and choreography by Amy Shephard.

At right at
two hours including an intermission, Wind in the Willows is slightly longer
than the usual children’s show at OFT and has more adult appeal than many of
their shows.

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Nancy Curtis as the muse. James O'Barr, director; and Scott Douglas as The Poet in a talkback after the preview performance at South Puget Sound Community College

“An Iliad” by Lisa
Peterson and Denis O'Hare, not to be confused with “The Iliad” by Homer, is a
one-person, one-act play, and it is as powerful and as intense as anything
you’re likely to see this year. Peterson and O’Hare’s “An Iliad” will be
performed two nights only in December at Olympia Family Theatre, starring Scott
Douglas as The Poet with musical accompaniment by Nancy Curtis as The Muse on
flute and other instruments, directed by James O’Barr.

Loosely based on “The
Iliad” translated by Robert Fables, “An Iliad” tells the tale of a small part
of the Trojan War with all the gods and warriors including Agamemnon, Achilles,
King Priam, Paris and Menelaus―complete with great acts of heroism and copious
bloodshed (but no actual or even stage blood.) The scenes of war are told by
the Poet and mercifully not acted out.

An Iliad combines the
classic hexameter verse of Homer’s epic poem with modern speech, and tells the
story of Agamemnon’s battle with Achilles and Achilles’ battle with Hector. And
it tells much more than that. It tells the tales of every war ever fought. The
gods have forced The Poet (ostensibly Homer) to sing the story of the war
endlessly down through the ages. Douglas as The Poet looks tired and angry.
He’s dressed like a veteran of some modern war, perhaps Iraq. At one point
early in the play he says:

Fighters from Coronea, Haleartus deep in meadows,

And men who held Platae and lived in Glisas,

Men who held the rough-hewn gates of Lower Thebes,

On-kee-stus the holy, Poseidon’s sun-filled grove,

Men from the town of Arne green with vineyards . . .

And suddenly he pauses
and then says:

Ah, that’s right, you don’t know any of these places .
. . and many of you, unless you’re old enough the remember your war in Vietnam,
don’t know about registration and the draft, and when your name came up, you
had to go . . . but these names—these names mean something to me. I knew these
boys . . . The point is, it’s like, on all these ships, are boys called up from
every small town in Ohio.

Fortunately, I got to see
a preview performance done for Lauren Love’s theater class at South Puget Sound
Community College, performed in the black box theater with no set, no lighting
or sound effects, no orchestra, but only Douglas telling the age-old and
ever-new tale with Curtis as the muse sitting on a stool playing her flute. Nothing
was needed beyond Douglas’s voice and his powerful expression of emotion as he
talks about war and love and heroism throughout the ages. The writing is
brilliant, and Douglas’s acting is mesmerizing. It is a powerful and exhausting
hour and a half.

For Douglas, it is an
acting tour de force and a monumental challenge as he is faced with a huge
memorization load and has to assume many personas and voices including gods and
mortals, male and female: Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector, Andromache, Hecuba and
more.

An Iliad will be
performed Dec. 7 and 8 at Olympia Family Theatre. The Saturday show is a
fundraiser for Orca Books, which is in the process of transitioning to a
multi-stakeholder, member co-op business. The Sunday show is a fundraiser for
Animal Fire Theatre.

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About Me

I am an artist and writer living in Olympia, Washington. I write an art review column, a theater review column and arts features for the Weekly Volcano, a community theater review column for The (Tacoma) News Tribune and regular arts features for OLY ARTS (Olympia).
My published novels are: This Is Me, Debbi, David; Tupelo; The Freedom Trilogy (a three-book series consisting of The Backside of Nowhere, Return to Freedom and Visual Liberties); Reunion at the Wetside; The Wives of Marty Winters; Imprudent Zeal and Until the Dawn. I've also published a book on art, As If Art Matters. All are available on amazon.com.
I grew up in Tupelo and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and have been living in the Pacific Northwest since 1988 where I am active in many progressive organizations such as PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).